Introduction

This association marketing benchmark study is now in its third year, and from the beginning, the study’s goal has been to help associations become better at marketing. A healthy, effective marketing function whose contributions are well understood is a key ingredient to overall association wellness and growth. Yet, such market functions are in the minority, not just in the association world, but across corporations as well. At the low end of the marketing effectiveness spectrum are organizations that struggle, as represented through comments shared by this frustrated association marketer:

“Email blasts are the main communication tool. When angry recipients demand opt-out, the leadership team doesn't take the request seriously until legal action is threatened. There are no goals set from Social Media to measure success. We still use FAX blasts with the assumption that they are effective. Brochures are still used with very heavy amounts of text (copy). Any time a discussion is brought up about content marketing with valuable information provided for free to help grow the community - the idea is dismissed as ‘giving away the farm’...We've seen membership remain flat and decline and event attendance is flat with fluctuating numbers by location but no real evidence of growth.”

As the comment above suggests, marketing’s failure to perform isn’t always the fault of marketing. There are many issues that help or hurt marketing’s effectiveness. This study takes a broad look at the issues shaping the association marketing landscape, reports the data from the study survey, providing some analysis and commentary to help association marketing improve.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Executive Summary

The State of Association Marketing

Assoc. Marketing Capabilities & Tactics

Strategy, Execution & Measurement

Digital Marketing Portfolio

Tasks & Skills

Metrics & Analytics

Budget & Resources

Analyst Bottom Line

Acknowledgements

About HighRoad Solution

About Demand Metric

Appendix - Survey Background

Research Methodology

Demand Metric Association Marketing Benchmark Study survey was administered online during the period of February 1, 2016 through June 30, 2016. During this period, 450 responses were collected, 292 of which were complete enough for inclusion in the analysis. The representativeness of these results depends on the similarity of the sample to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.

From March 2015 to July 2015, Demand Metric and HighRoad Solution collaborated to conduct a survey to find about the state of association marketing in 2015 as compared to the previously researched 2014 study.

In a November 2014 study sponsored by Demandbase, Demand Metric conducted a survey to took a close look at digital marketing to understand current practices, goals, strategies, metrics and effectiveness.

This eWorkshop was presented by VP Research at Demand Metric, Clare Price, at Demand Metric's Digital Marketing Virtual Summit in June of 2014. This workshop discusses the seven components of Digital Marketing on four different levels of maturity.

Discover how video marketing works and which best practices are required to get results. This course has 3 video modules that go from fundamental concepts to advanced implementation of video marketing including lead nurturing and scoring.